“I was in hiding in my country for the last eight, nine months,” said Rehana Hashmi, explaining why she almost missed the deadline for the University of San Diego’s Women PeaceMakers program. “In Pakistan, terrorists fight all who are human rights defenders — especially women, because they think the woman’s place is in the home.”

Annually, USD scours the globe for four women who have advanced peace and human rights in their respective countries. This year’s PeaceMakers, the 11th such group, arrived in August for an eight-week stay on campus. They live together in a villa behind the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice, but this is no vacation. All four will make numerous presentations, beginning with tonight’s panel discussion.

Taking a break from daily cares and dangers, the PeaceMakers attend classes at USD, network with U.S. civil society organizations and share notes with each other. But even on this peaceful campus, looking back on their work forces the PeaceMakers to reflect on the risks they’ve run.

“At the time, you do this because it is right,” said Rutuparna Mohanty, an Indian lawyer and founder of a shelter for sexually exploited women and girls. “Now, I am thinking this is really dangerous.”

Talking Peace

The 2013 Women PeaceMakers will make several free presentations at the Institute for Peace & Justice’s theater, the University of San Diego, 5998 Alcala Park, San Diego.

Today, 7 p.m.: Panel discussion, with all four women sharing their stories.

Thursday, 1:30 p.m.: Sabiha Husic of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Sept. 24, 12:30 p.m.: Rehana Hashmi of Pakistan

Sept. 26, 12:30 p.m.: Philister Baya Lawiri of South Sudan

Oct. 1, 12:30 p.m.: Rutuparna Mohanty of India

The 2013 PeaceMakers are all veterans of life-and-death struggles. Philister Baya Lawiri helps women displaced by the decades-long war that in 2011 left South Sudan independent from Sudan. Sabiha Husic, a psychotherapist and Islamic theologian in Bosnia-Herzegovina, counsels victims of wartime rapes — and their rapists.

Peacemaking is dangerous work.

Or, these four insist, women’s work.

“God created all creatures, but we women give birth to the children,” Hashmi said. “We women don’t want to see children dying, all that bloodshed. So we struggle for peace, whether at home, at the national level or even at the international level.”

Fighting back

While the PeaceMakers are accustomed to running risks at home, several had to hurdle obstacles to leave their countries.

Hashmi runs Sisters Trust Pakistan, an Islamabad organization with an uphill mission: Helping women leave abusive relationships and forced marriages. That’s made Hashmi and her supporters targets. Her nephew, branded a “secularist,” was assassinated by radical Islamic fundamentalists in July 2012. He was 17.

“My whole family went into hiding,” she said.

That’s why it took months for friends in Canada to alert Hashmi to the PeaceMaker program. Receiving the message hours before the deadline, she couldn’t find a working fax machine.

Her mailed application barely qualified, postmarked on the final day.

Terrorism also nearly sabotaged Lawiri’s journey. Needing a visa for her trip to San Diego, she traveled to the U.S. embassy in Juba, South Sudan’s capital. It was closed because U.S. intelligence agencies had been warned of al-Qaeda attacks on American outposts in the Middle East and Africa.